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This entry was posted
on Monday, September 13th, 2010 at 11:25 am by Radley Balko
and is filed under Police Professionalism.
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If a citizen even LOOKS at a police dog the wrong way, that citizen is treated to a free beat down and is charged with Assault on a Police Officer (or worse). Who is the arbiter of said evil looks? Why, the dog’s handler, of course. Yeah, no conflict of interest there.

On the other hand, the police can kill any dog, any time, for any reason, in any situation. I have yet to hear of a single case of puppycide in which the Police were charged with a crime – more often than not they are hailed (by their fellow officers) as “heroes”.

There is a distinct double-standard of treatment under the law in this country. On one hand, We the People must toe the line or we will be beaten, tasered and shot.

On the other side of that line, government employees are completely unaccountable, no matter how many unarmed dogs and children they mistakenly kill. They set it up that way, and nothing we do will make them change it.

Armed to the teeth, Bloodthirsty Goons versus We The People and our dogs. It sounds like a horror movie, but it has become real.

Noam has always been my example of how the biggest leftie can still be respected by at least adhering to some consistency and logic. I disagree with him on lots, but I can respect how he applies his beliefs.

I agree, Charlie. I think it would be completely defensible (not in America…but in a country where rule of law applies) to blow away someone who is bum-rushing your house and killing your pets. Who on Earth WOULDN’T fear that this person is about to kill you next?

But in America, there is absolutely no circumstance where ANY self-defense against a cop will be deemed justified. On the flip side, ANY and ALL stories made up by cops (ex: you had a brush in your hand) will be enough to justify their use of deadly force and putting 30 bullets into your carcass.

I can’t seem to find many stories of cops being killed/maimed by pet attacks to justify how often they kill pets. So, I must conclude the cops are just violent d-bags.

I agree. I’m just surprised it hasn’t happened yet. I know if someone killed one of my cats, there would be no force on earth short of six bullets center mass that would prevent me from beating them to death. And from what I understand, dog owners tend to be even more fiercely protective, at least rhetorically. One of these days some dog owner is going to have his or her dog shot in front of them, they’ll go into a berserker rage/hulk out, and suddenly things will get far, far worse.

To recap, the State will never fail to defend its agents to the death unless one of the following circumstances applies:

1. A State agent in the line of duty acts for personal gain.

2. A State agent in the line of duty acts out of provable (very high threshold) malice.

3. A State agent off duty commits a serious crime.

And even under these circumstances, considerable discretion to prosecute remains. But without at least one of these conditions, it is certain the State agent will face no meaningful penalties.

Sadly, a State agent killing a dog in the line of duty does not merit criminal sanction in America (or anywhere else?). The one recent case where there were repercussions was the Virginia case of the off-duty federal agent shooting the dog at the dog park, which satisfies #3, and possibly #2.

What a pussy country we’ve turned in to. Police kill dogs (and people) with impunity, a surveillance state grows without any serious opposition, government expands and expands and eats away at our rights. Do you think Sam Adams would have put up with this? There should be ten thousand people protesting in every major city in the country every day, but we just watch things slide.

Its going to be interesting regarding the puppycide in Adams Morgan DC. Witnessed by a big bunch of mostly white, upper income, highly educated people. Adams Morgan is the heart of the gay area in DC who, from my experience, are often big on their pets.

A lot of people are pissed off, and these are people with the power and experience to put some real pressure on the cops. I am waiting for the cell phone footage.

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 13th, 2010 at 11:25 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Police Professionalism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

17 Responses to “Cop vs. Dog”
#1 | Joe | September 13th, 2010 at 11:41 am
Solving the problem of too many unadopted animals, one case at a time.

If a citizen even LOOKS at a police dog the wrong way, that citizen is treated to a free beat down and is charged with Assault on a Police Officer (or worse). Who is the arbiter of said evil looks? Why, the dog’s handler, of course. Yeah, no conflict of interest there.

On the other hand, the police can kill any dog, any time, for any reason, in any situation. I have yet to hear of a single case of puppycide in which the Police were charged with a crime – more often than not they are hailed (by their fellow officers) as “heroes”.

There is a distinct double-standard of treatment under the law in this country. On one hand, We the People must toe the line or we will be beaten, tasered and shot.

On the other side of that line, government employees are completely unaccountable, no matter how many unarmed dogs and children they mistakenly kill. They set it up that way, and nothing we do will make them change it.

Armed to the teeth, Bloodthirsty Goons versus We The People and our dogs. It sounds like a horror movie, but it has become real.

Our Government = The Real Terrorists.

+17
#7 | Charlie O | September 13th, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Just once, I want to read a story about a cop lying dead in pool of blood from a pet owner putting a bullet in his/her head after said cop just murdered their pet.

+17
#7 | Charlie O | September 13th, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Just once, I want to read a story about a cop lying dead in pool of blood from a pet owner putting a bullet in his/her head after said cop just murdered their pet.

+16

Actually at an undisclosed secret location, dogs are being trained to properly apply self defense to protect themselves from over zealous officers… and not to shoot their owners.

Of course an armed pet population adds a new level of urgency to feed me, walk me, etc.

[my bad at 19 above, not sure why the other posts got grouped in there]

#16 | Boyd Durkin — “I stand by the claim that in the eyes of the state there’s no such thing as killing a cop in self-defense.”

That’s a separate claim, and I agree. One would hope that the “no-knock, no announce” raid, would be the exception to that rule, but then that would mean we don’t live in a police state, which we all know to be false.

Charles #15, the founding fathers didn’t live in a world with assassination drones or an omnipresent police state. Yea they certainly would never have allowed any government to get anywhere near what we have now but back then the people actually could altar or abolish forms of government. It would be just suicide to try it now. The best we can hope for is that government bleeds us to death in the endless wars resulting in a Soviet style implosion, either that or move to another country, one where they still have some freedom.

This could be solved quite easily by banning private ownership of dogs. I mean, really, if the founding fathers thought that pet ownership was truly a right, they would have included it (like the 2nd amendment), but they didn’t. Think how many dog lives would be saved if only armed government agents had dogs.
Prohibition works!!!

This could be solved quite easily by banning private ownership of dogs. I mean, really, if the founding fathers thought that pet ownership was truly a right, they would have included it (like the 2nd amendment), but they didn’t.

When the Law Enforcement establishment decided to adopt the, Officer Safety is Paramount method of policing and coupled it with the essentially unimpeachable officer response “I feared for my safety” they opened the door and the season on anything living that might cross paths with a Cop. There are a multitude of problems in our country today Chief among them being the entire political process followed closely by a legal system that is top to bottom corrupt to it’s core.

#26 | SusanK | September 13th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
This could be solved quite easily by banning private ownership of dogs. I mean, really, if the founding fathers thought that pet ownership was truly a right, they would have included it (like the 2nd amendment), but they didn’t. Think how many dog lives would be saved if only armed government agents had dogs.
Prohibition works!!!

+3

Can we substitute monkeys and apes for dogs instead? Oh wait, oh oh, what could go wrong? Never mind.

This is one pattern of abuse by law enforcement which, when brought to the attention of the public (as we’ve started to see with the Missouri SWAT video), can feasibly stir up enough outrage to positively change the situation for the better.

Of all the criminal justice reforms sought on this site, this is the one that is within our grasp to actually fix.

@33,
Cynical’s example used an off-duty cop out of uniform and the cop never faced even a whiff of charges against him. Sagon Penn, who eventually committed suicide, was “acquitted of murder at his first trial, but the jury deadlocked on manslaughter charges. A second jury acquitted him of attempted-murder and manslaughter charges, but deadlocked on lesser charges.”

Hardly the 8-weeks paid vacation, pats on the back from comrades, and no charges filed at all after a quick internal investigation that cops enjoy. If Sagon Penn can’t escape without years of legal battles/bills after what the police did to him, then I have to stand by the hyperbole of my earlier post. Except it isn’t hyperbole.

I would like to think that the puppycide incidents might sway some people, but I’m afraid that, in the minds of the majority, puppycide falls into that other Balko anti-meme “Another Isolated Incident.”